Wednesday, November 9, 2016

I can’t imagine what you must be feeling today.If it’s anything like what I’m going through,
you’re alternating between stunned silence and eating everything you can get
your hands on while screaming, “It’s Not Fair! It's Not Fair! It's Not Fair!” In the days and weeks and months to come, I’m sure you’ll be
subjected to the views of the media and anyone with over 42 Twitter followers
about what you could’ve done differently.I’m in theatre, so I understand the desire to create causality between
events.We want things to make sense,
and when we construct fictive stories, this is one of our main criteria.

But life, unfortunately, is not art, and doesn’t follow its
guidelines.Some things just don’t make
sense.You not being our 45th
President is one of those things.

The people I know
weren’t voting for you because you weren’t him.We were voting for you because we believed, sincerely, passionately, proudly and profoundly, that you were the most qualified person to run for this office.We continue to believe that.

We also believe that after you emerge from the hurt and the
loss and the mourning, you will rise again, and continue dedicating your life
to do the kind of good that we have come to expect from you.You are bigger than this.You are better than this.And as you’ve had to do so many times before,
you will prove that.

Those of us who are queer understand a basic tenant that is
true for all minorities and unempowered: our work is never done.Ever since I heard you speak at Vassar
College in 1995, you have been my inspiration for fighting the good fight.

I want to wallow in my feelings and finish
that bag of trail mix filled with chocolate and sweetened cranberries.But instead, I’m going to get to work, making
some plays that will express a fraction of the rage and fear I feel right
now.Because that’s what I think you’d
want me to do.I’m trying to go high,
Secretary Clinton. It’s not easy, but I’m trying.

Thank you for your years of service. You make me proud to be
an American.

Friday, September 23, 2016

This is the entry that I’ve been putting off writing,
because writing it means that I actually have to say goodbye to New York.

I am sitting in the lobby of my beautiful theatre, on a
gorgeous autumnal day in Ithaca, and I couldn’t be happier to be here. A few weeks ago, Rafa and I (with the help of
two strapping young men) packed up a U-Haul, drove to Ithaca, and unpacked in
the beautiful house that I will move into shortly, once the renovations are
complete.Nota bene: We kept the NYC place because:

1)
Rafa will
still be living there (and I plan on being back there plenty)

And

2) Nobody ever said, “I gave up my rent-stabilized
2BR in NYC and golly gee that was a great idea!”

We’re able to do this, if you’re curious, by converting my
office into a bedroom and taking in a roommate.Did I mention how grateful I am to my spouse, who at this point in his
life has accepted that he’ll be living with a roommate because his husband has
dreams to run a theatre somewhere?

What I’m saying is: I still have my home in NYC. I have
moved to one of the most beautiful places in the country and the world.And yet still, the decision to leave New York
was the hardest thing about taking this job.After weeks of deliberation (and many therapy sessions), I think I know
why.I’ll tell you a little story about
language and Mexico to make my point.

Mexico City

If you grow up in Mexico City[1],
you refer to yourself as chilango,
which literally means “belonging to Mexico City.”But for our purposes, we can think of the
term as the kind of pride New Yorkers take in calling themselves New
Yorkers.If you’re a chilango, however, there’s a word you
use for everyone who wasn’t born in Mexico City.That word is provinciano.I believe that those Mexicans not from Mexico
City feel some resentment about the phrase, and really, who can blame
them?It would be like if New Yorkers
called everyone else in the USA provincial.I said called, not thought of.

But this little story illustrates
my greatest fear in leaving New York.For all the horror of living in New York: the ridiculous rent,
overpriced restaurants, sweltering heat, numbing winters, the bombardment of
cruelty you can experience in the ten-minute walk from your apartment to the
subway, the feeling like you have to be making a seven-figure salary to not
feel worthless, the horrible traffic that makes leaving almost as difficult as
getting back in, the cacophony of light and sound that is its own perpetual
bombardment; the Faustian bargain you make is that you get to have access to
the best of everything.

Now, I know all you non-New
Yorkers may balk at this summation.“Chicago’s improv scene is as good if not better,” I hear you
saying.“What about the restaurants of
Los Angeles?”“The museums of D.C.?”
“The seafood of Boston?”

And of course you’re right – all
of those cities excel in those areas.But New York excels in all of them.Every single one.There’s no
other city in this country (or the world?) where you can go to a world-class
seafood restaurant, museum and play every night of the year without having to
repeat.Or do anything else for that
matter.

Not only that, but I am living
proof that you can live in New York on an artist’s income (read: hovering
around the poverty line) and still experience all of those things.And not just in the theatre world.I have enjoyed the Metropolitan Opera from
twentieth row center seats.A few
times.I have watched a Mets Opener from
the owner’s box and watched Jeter’s last game (which I swear was rigged) from a
private box, with catering.I got into
the Freedom Tower before it was open to the public.When I was in New York last weekend I went to
see two plays.Mayor de Blasio was at
one.Lena Dunham was at the other.My tuxedo, which I bought when I was 15 to
attend some high school proms and still fits, got used regularly during my 19
years in New York.It brushed elbows
with, well, I hate to name drop, but let’s start with Meryl Streep and Jude
Law.I have attended countless Broadway
openings and restaurant openings and gallery openings.All for free.

But where this matters most to me
is art, specifically theatre.I’m not
saying the theatre in New York is better than anywhere else.I’m saying it’s better than everywhere
else.Just because there’s so much more
of it.And I can hear my friend John
Iacovelli insisting that LA produces more plays than New York does.But even if that’s true, who ever heard of
flying to LA for the weekend to catch a few plays?

I heart NY.

In my 19 years in New York I saw
thousands of plays.So even if they’re
as good as theatre other places, seeing so many more of them means I have spent
more hours of my life watching inspirational theatre than a non-New Yorker
has.And so much of what I make, I
realize, is inspired by that work.Seeing the best theatre in the world, all the time, inspired me.It showed me the work that I wanted to be
making, both in terms of quality and aesthetic.I suppose if I were a different artist I wouldn’t need that to make the
best work I can.But I’m not.I’m the kind of artist who thrives through
exposure.And so, my fear in leaving New
York, is that I will become provincial.

Truth be told, I’m not sure if I
would’ve been able to do it even five years ago.But most of my friends have had kids now, or
moved to New Jersey, or had kids and
moved to New Jersey, and with the exception of my buddies on the soccer team
and the wonderful Upstart Creatures (which will solider on with Suzanne Agins
assuming Co-Artistic Directorship with me) I don’t really have a community to
hang out with.

And honestly, New York isn’t the
city it was when I moved there almost exactly 19 years ago.It’s hard to be objective about how it’s
changed, because of course, I’ve changed too, and when both the object and the
viewer are in states of transition, you never really know what is an empirical
change and what is perspective.At the
least, I know that every time one of my favorite places closes and is replaced
by a bank, pharmacy or waxing salon, a part of my heart dies.At the most, I know that going up 9th
Avenue and seeing all the stores that are no longer there, like photographs
that have been over-developed, is its own kind of trauma.

I’m planning on coming back to New
York a lot.For Upstart events.For plays. For weddings.But writing this as the sun sets over Cayuga
Lake, I’m also looking forward to my years in Ithaca.Especially because the more my artistic
vision for the theatre takes shape, the more excited I am about it…

[1] No
one in Mexico actually calls Mexico City “Mexico City.”They all call it “DF,” for Distrito
Federal.This was the case until January
2016, when its denizens voted for the city to become its own state (but because
it’s also the capital of the country, it can’t be an entire state, so now it’s
something in between and Rafael isn’t happy about it).

Around five years ago, I decided to start applying for small
Artistic Director jobs.The response,
uniformly, was a chorus of crickets.And then, about a year ago, it’s like the PTB decided to take pity on me.
(PTB = Powers That Be. Points if you could place the Buffy reference.)“The guy’s about to turn 40,” I imagined them
saying with slight condescension, “We might as well call him.”Part of this newer response, I’m sure, had to
do with having reached a threshold of experience (imagine me singing a
gin-soaked “I’m still here” in a slinky number).But also I had the fortune of applying to
institutions with which I was familiar.This
meant I could write application letters that weren’t just regurgitations of my
resume in prose form.Instead, I could
write about the directions in which I could help lead them.What my vision for them would be, per
se.

After receiving word that I’d made it to the semifinalist round,
I met with Jessica Casey, Chair of the Hunt for the Next Artistic Director Committee, who gave me the salary range, which felt
totally reasonable.A
short meeting with Managing Director Josh Friedman followed.This meeting, I imagine, was longer for
applicants who were not the Interim, and an opportunity for the theatre to
describe itself, artistically and financially, to the applicants.Ten of us had made it to the semi-finalist
round. A few people pulled out at this point and a
few more were eliminated.Three of us
made it to the finalist round.

My brilliant writer friend Bridget Carpenter gave me a great
piece of job advice once: get the job, then figure out if you want it.But here’s the funny do-si-doof applying for an Artistic Directorship:
by the time you make it to the final round, you basically have to swear that
you’ll accept the job if they offer it to you.It’s a complicated relationship to navigate, because the theatre wants
you to commit to it before it is willing to commit to you.I’m not entirely sure this is equitable, but as
the Pioneer’s former Artistic Director Charles Morey shared on my Facebook wall
when I got the interim job (and I’m paraphrasing only slightly): “To be a great
Artistic Director, you have to put the needs of the theatre in front of your own.”

I tried to keep this in mind as we entered the final part of
the application process: the interviews.The other candidates were flown into town on consecutive weekends. Because
I was already here, the Hangar didn’t need to pay for my travel or housing –
see, I was already a good deal! –but all
three of us were put through the same process.

Even having worked as the Interim for almost a full year,
even after months in Ithaca and days spent prepping, I still wasn’t fully prepared
for the rigor of these interviews.Having
never been a finalist for a job like this before, I didn’t know what to expect
as I headed into the two-day process. This was the schedule:

Date

Time

Event

Place

People

Monday, August 1st

11:30am - 12:30pm

Meet with Search Committee

Hangar Theatre

Search Committee

12:45 - 1:45pm

Lunch with Adam

Adam Zonder - Production Manager

3:00 - 4:00pm

Meet with Helen

Office

Helen Clark - Education

4:00 - 5:00pm

Administrative Staff meet with
candidate

Office

Administrative staff

Tuesday, August 2nd

10:30 - 11:30am

Focus Group #1 - Education

Hangar Theatre

Education Committee

11:30am - 1:00pm

Focus Group #2 - Season Planning

Hangar Theatre

Search Committee/Artistic
Advisory Committee

1:00 - 2:30pm

Break

2:30 - 3:30pm

Focus Group #3 -
Finance/Development

Hangar Theatre

Development/Finance Committee

4:30 - 5:30pm

Cocktail hour/meet the community

Hangar Theatre

Board and community

5:30pm

Dinner with Josh

Josh Friedman - Managing
Director

Wednesday, August 3rd

TBA

Exit Interview

TBA

Margaret Shackell

And don’t be fooled: in this vocabulary, meal means
“interview plus food.”

My initial meeting with the search committee went pretty
well, as did my lunch with Adam Zonder, who was the Production Manager when I
was here 15 years ago as a Drama League Hangar Directing Fellow.It didn’t hurt that our relationship that
summer had been surprisingly productive (I suspect Adam and I were two of the
most surprised by this).Education plays
a huge role at the Hangar, and Helen, the Director of that Department, probably
spent as much time telling me what direction she wished her department could
grow as I did talking about the same thing.Even though our desks had been next to each other, it was incredible how
revealing dedicating time for a single purpose can be.But since Helen and I ended up rescheduling
our meeting, I ended up meeting with the Education Committee first. I had grown
up in the McCarter Theatre’s Outreach Department. I’ve taught at inner city
middle schools, high schools, and colleges across the country.This was the committee meeting I was least
nervous about.At least, that’s what I
tried to tell myself half-way through, as I was clearly bombing it. I wish I'd spent more time actually thinking about what I'd like to do with the Hangar's Education Department.

To be interviewed by the people I’d gotten to know and like
so much over the last few months was alternately enjoyable and awkward,.And what I thought was my brilliant season was presented at the
next meeting, but I was stunned when people didn’t fall over themselves telling
me how brilliant they thought it was (I often feel that way, frankly).The Finance/Development committee was kind –
this was clearly my weak spot, and I felt like a politician, delivering empty
promises with no idea of how to execute them.During the cocktail hour/meet the community event the Board President’s
children interrupted me by crossing to the refreshments intermittingly during
my speech, which allowed me to cover for getting off track with some light
banter.

The final events, dinner with Josh the Managing Director and
lunch the next day with the board president, permitted a frankness that is
difficult to muster on an every-day basis with the two people I probably had worked
closest with as the Interim.

I hadn’t felt like I’d crushed it at the end of those 2.5
days.If anything, I was surprised at
how much more thoroughly I’d been forced to think about a job I was basically
already doing and had already committed to accepting.As difficult as it was for me, I couldn’t
imagine how much harder it would be for the two candidates who came in from out
of town: it got me thinking about how much I rely on context, like how much a
board member’s history with the institution affected the meaning of a question
she might ask me at any of the multiple interviews to which I’d been subjected.

Mostly, however, engaging formally with all these people I’d
been working with for months made me realize how much I really liked them, how
much I really liked working with them, how much I liked the town and community,
and how much I really wanted this job.

But wanting this job and being ready to leave New York City
were entirely different things…